Euronews

Euro zone ministers meeting in Brussels have agreed to increase the firepower of their rescue fund as experts say time is running out the save the euro.

No figures were released to say exactly by how much the European Financial Stability Facility would be beefed up – one trillion euros still appears to be the preferred target.

Jean-Claude Juncker, Eurogroup President explained:

“Important progress has been made to deliver the package agreed at the Eurosummit on the 26th of October and build more effective firewalls against the crisis. This shows are common commitment and our common determination to do whatever it takes to safeguard the financial stability of the euro area.”

Ways to support the EFSF have been looked at from getting private investors to participate to enabling the International Monetary Fund to take up any short fall.

“We also agreed to rapidly explore an increase of the resources of the IMF through bilateral loans following the mandate from the G20 Cannes summit so that the IMF could adequately match the new firepower of the EFSF and cooperate even more closely with it,” added Juncker.

Also on day one of the two-day meeting ministers finally agreed to release an eight billion euro segment of Greece’s bailout to help it avert a default next month.